


Protect The Stars (Protect The Light)

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Creation of the Sun and Moon, Destruction of the Two Trees, Gen, Ilmare-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23545870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: Ilmare is exploring the universe, building the constellations, tending the stars—and then disaster strikes.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Protect The Stars (Protect The Light)

_Space was nice_ , she decided. _Much more interesting than the ground_. And it was constantly expanding! She would never run out of places to explore, and more importantly, things to understand. That would be her work, understanding everything. Not like how Eru understood everything. That was impossible, of course. Eru knew change and time and evolution. Ilmarë didn’t see the point in applying herself to this. Either things would change, or they wouldn’t. She couldn’t do much about it, and knew it would be useless to try. After crossing off time as something to explore, she decided to travel across the only dimension left to her—space. Lady Varda let her leave with only one message: Protect the stars.

“What is a star?” Language was slowly beginning to evolve as the Ainur realized the need to be able to communicate with the Firstborn, who were rumored to need such needlessly complex institutions, but Ilmarë never saw the point of using it when song was so much more expressive.

“A star is…” Lady Varda pondered. Language failed her here, and the brief melody she issued could only be translated as “light. A star is light.”

Ilmarë nodded. She understood light. Varda gently transferred several balls of pure light to Ilmarë. “To begin,” she explained, and Ilmarë’s quest grew a little more interesting as she set about illuminating the furthest reaches of the universe.

She had just placed another group of stars—seven, this time—when the cry arose. Ilmarë had grown so accustomed to the spectrum of light that she barely recognized soundwaves anymore. As it was, she took a long time to acknowledge the sound for what it was—raw, unfiltered pain. Despair and anger and that utter melancholy that’s too powerful to be expressed as anything but a guttural lament. Ilmarë was moving before she could properly process anything. She spared no thought for what she was rushing headlong into, too affected by the distress growing throughout her universe.

It had been so long since she had been to the world in the center of everything. Ilmarë hardly recognized anything as she approached. She certainly didn’t recognize the silver lamp circling the world, held aloft by a boat piloted by what appeared to be one of Orome’s Maiar. 

“Hello,” she called out, first with her _fea_ , then with actual song. “Who goes there?”

“Who are you?” a gruff voice replied.

“I am Ilmarë, handmaiden to Lady Varda, who dwells among the stars. Now who are you, and what in the name of Eru has happened here?” 

“You don’t know?” the Maia’s green-and-silver painted face fell. “Melkor—he—the Trees are destroyed!”

Ilmare had not left so long ago that she forgot the Trees, in all their splendour. Lady Yavanna must’ve been heartbroken, Lady Nienna as well. All of them, really. Ilmarë could not think of anyone who wasn’t awestruck by the ethereal glow.

“Then you are guarding what’s left of Telperion, at least. What of Laurelin?”

“There is another who will be joining me,” he blushed here, a burst of orange against the silver glow of Telperion’s last fruit. “Arien, a fire spirit. She has Laurelin’s fruit. The Sun, I think, is what she’ll be called. I’m Tilion, by the way.”

Ilmarë nodded. She tried to process all that had happened, but after only focusing on space and movement, she found it hard to imagine that so much could have changed. But did she need to understand the past? She still had Lady Varda’s command: Protect the light. The stars would be fine but Tilion, she wasn’t so sure about. He may need protection. And this Arien, too. Ilmarë might have to protect her as well. The last lights of the Trees could not be lost. Her beloved stars were mere flickers next to Telperion and Laurelin, and Lady Varda had not specified _which_ light to protect. It was decided—Ilmarë would guard the newly placed Moon and, when she arrived, the Sun.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be the prologue to an Ilmare/Arien piece that I never got around to finishing, so take it for what it is: a short little thing about Ilmare that may or may not ever be continued.


End file.
